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Saturday, September 19, 2009

Louis' Steak House is one the the few remaining traditional Hong Kong styled, upscale steak houses you can find. Due to its uniqueness, it is in my opinion that it cannot be compared with western steak house such as Ruth Chris or Morton's directly nor can it be compared with the so-called local Hong Kong steak houses like Garden Restaurant (花園餐廳) because many of such restaurants use baking soda as part of the process but definitely not here at Louis' Steak House. It deserves a category of its own with the closest match I can think of being Jimmy's Kitchen. Once I step inside the dining area, the feeling I got was a resemblance of Amigo with all the wooden furnishing and dim environment; but not as extravagant or sumptuous of course. Just the look of the chair is vastly different. I bet the environment and decor remained mostly unchanged for the past 30 years. The wait staff was very welcoming and let me took a few pictures before heading to our table.

Before I go for the food review, I wanted to mention a few things about its services. Its services were great; all waiters were efficient, very attentive to details and very responsive as well. However, in my opinion, they were overly efficient, overly attentive and overly responsive! They gave us a feeling that we were being rushed to order, to eat and to finish. When we were only 3 mins or so into the menu, one of the captain came over all set to take our orders. Even after I told him we needed a few more minutes with the menu, he just stood there and kept on suggesting different items to us. That was great but I wanted to at least read through the menu first, I AM ON PAGE 2 of 8 of the menu my friend !!! At the end of ordering, he asked us, "you two are not in a rush right?" ... I wanted to tell him that "no we are not, but it seems that you are !!!" It was not like the place was full house but they acted like it was busy lunch hour. Even during the meal, dishes were cleaned up as soon as I placed my fork and knife on the plate. Very responsive indeed! One more thing, I do hope they can change or add more variety of music to their list background musics because it was Kenny G all night long, over and over again! (and repeating tracks too, which means from the same CD!)

A basket of bread was served before the first time were served. It consisted of two types, a regular sliced French bread and thin toast. They were warm with very crisp crust, not bad! Plus the bread will come in handy later in the meal.

(1) OX Tail SoupThe soup was thick and rich in flavors, especially beef flavor which I loved. Very good but no surprises. Bigger chunk of beef would be nice too.

(2) Caesar SaladThe Caesar salad was served by spinning it at the table-side. We got to pick out own ingredients form the tray. It was tasty but the romaine was not as crisp as we expected.

(3) Rib Eye (Medium Rare)Very well prepared! It was medium rare as we ordered! It was very tender and beef-y, not too much fat was attached and no extra seasoning was needed, it was great the way it was. I one I noticed was that the texture of the steak was slightly softer than other rib eye I tried before and the only reasoning I can come up with was the thickness of the steak being served: the cute was thinner and wider than the usual (at least based on my personal experiences). Anyhow, we enjoyed it, the quality of the steak was better than I expected.

(4) Fish Maw (aka fish's gas bladder) [花膠]One of its famous dish. When ordering, the waiter (who repeatedly suggested this item) said that the Fish Maw is one of their top-sellers and it is a fusion dish. Fusion? humm ... I think it was more a Chinese dish served in a Western restaurant. Fusion is more like combining different cooking styles like Japanese and French together, not when you are serving an individual sweet and sour pork dish in a French restaurant. Putting aside this point, the fish maw was GREAT, thick, chewy and sticky (gluten-y?). The sauce was rich and deep; and we did not waste any of it; we ordered an extra basket of bread to soak up all the sauce! One of the waiters suggested that instead of using the French bread, try the small toast to soak the sauce. It was a great suggestion / recommendation, better than using the French bread. Make sure you place the toast in the sauce for a while before eating it to ensure enough sauce have been absorbed. The dish was very clean afterward! The 30 or chickens (as informed by one of the waiters) that contributed to the making of the sauce was not wasted at all! However, there was a disappointment with this dish, it was the little mushroom. It was canned! It tasted canned, texture wise it was canned and yes it was canned mushroom!

(5) Baked AlaskaIt was nice to watch our dessert to go into flames and that was the only interesting part I guess. The egg white was overly sweet with more than enough sugar added. My daily intake of sugar just skyrocketed and I better cut down sugar intake for the next two or three days! Also, the flame did not last long enough on the surface, the result was heavy whiskey residue which in general is not a bad thing but you must get a very strong whiskey-flavored piece (with the alcohol content still there!)

(6) Irish CoffeeIt was strong! Not the coffee but the Irish whiskey! Ever for me who loves whiskey considered it very strong but I almost wanted to order another one because I enjoyed very much! It certainly warmed up my whole body, a perfect drink for winter!

By the time we finished our meal, it was around 9:20pm (we arrived around 7:30pm). Pretty quick right? Considering the quick and overly efficient working pace of the waiters, we were surprised we lasted this long! (If I recall correctly, we were the second last table to leave on this Saturday evening at 9:30pm.)

Likes:

Irish Coffee, strong but well made!

Rib Eye - very well prepared, softer in texture than other rib eye i tried before (but I personally prefer the slight chewy and firmer rib eye)

Fish Maw - very sticky and thick, nicely done. The flavors were rich and deep.

Dislikes:

Overly efficient and overly attentive services, made us feel being rush!